Archive for the 'Observing Reports' Category

Observing Report 19th-20th September 2019 (Moon RC+ASI174MC)

Posted by on September 26th 2019 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports
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Seeing was better, decided to try out the ASI174MC on the RC6, this is a two-panel stitch. Feel free to click it.

 

Note to self: ZWO ASI174MC on RC6, undebayered raw in FC, debayer RGGB VNG in FCdeb, K3x1, Reg5, PS.

Observing Report 24th August 2019 (Backstop)

Posted by on August 27th 2019 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports

Seeing was bad, not much chance of imaging galaxies or nebulae, so I went for the Moon instead:

 

Note to self: ZWO ASI174MC, undebayered raw in FC, debayer RGGB in FCdeb, K3x2, Reg5, PS.

Observing Report 18th August 2019 (a better ISS Solar Transit)

Posted by on August 18th 2019 in My vids, Observing Reports, Video (YouTube, Vimeo etc.)

I thought that my recent unscheduled stay in hospital would mean missing this morning's ISS Solar Transit, but I was let out yesterday after only 10 days.

There were hardly any gaps in the cloud cover, but I got set up anyway. Luckily, a small gap appeared at just the right time and for just long enough to get the job done. The recently-acquired ZWO ASI174MC made light work of capturing full-frame (1936 x 1216 px) raw .avi data at 160 FPS.

Here's a clip, slowed to 4 FPS. It's best viewed in full-screen at 1080p.

 

And here's a cropped stack of the ISS. I think that it's a reasonable first effort:

 

Observing Report 20th-21st July 2019 (Fifty years on)

Posted by on July 22nd 2019 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports

At 02:56:15 UTC on July 21st 1969 Armstrong became the first person to step onto the Moon.

It seemed fitting to get an image of the Moon at 02:56:15 UTC on July 21st 2019.

 

 

It's not the best lunar image I've ever made, but I was trying out a recently-acquired second-hand camera with a recently-acquired second-hand PC and a recently-acquired new SSD. Being able to record full-frame (1936 x 1216 px) raw .avi files at 160 FPS with no skipped frames and no write-lag is a real improvement which should be useful for capturing ISS Transits:

 

Observing Report 1st-2nd November 2018 part 2 (Scooby-Doo v3)

Posted by on April 2nd 2019 in Observing Reports

Still wading through the backlog of astro-data that I'd been meaning to either process or bin.

Here's another result from way back in November last year, I think it's much better than my similar images from 2008 and 2017:

 

M45 - The Pleiades, in the constellation of Taurus. 2nd November 2018.
Subs: 25 light @ 300s, 50 dark frames, 50 bias frames.
QHY10 on the C80 ED-R Frac, guided with PHD.

Observing Report 1st-2nd November 2018 part 1 (Early Christmas Treat)

Posted by on January 15th 2019 in Astrostuff, Observing Reports

I seem to have plenty of time on my hands, so instead of wasting it I've been wading through the backlog of astro-data that I'd been meaning to either process or bin.

Here's the first pic from way back in November last year:

NGC 2264 Area, 2nd November 2018.
Subs: 27 light @ 300s, 50 dark frames, 50 bias frames.
QHY10 on the C80 ED-R Frac, guided with PHD.

There's a lot going on there, so I think I'll be giving it a lot more attention with a bigger scope when I get through the current treatment. There's the Cone Nebula, the Christmas Tree Cluster, the Snowflake Cluster, and the Fox Fur Nebula - see the NGC 2264 Wikipedia page for a what's what and where.